Less than two years ago, Wolverhampton Wanderers, then managed by Mick McCarthy, topped the Premier League. Admittedly that was something of a statistical oddity – the Manchester giants had only played two games, Wolves three – but it serves to illustrate how precipitously the Black Country club has fallen in the past 21 months. So too, unfortunately, did their performance here. Hopes of a relegation-preventing miracle, in the form of a hefty away win and heavy beatings for Barnsley and Peterborough, were never high, and were extinguished quickly, perhaps mercifully so.

Barely 60 seconds after Bakary Sako had clipped Albion's Tomasz Kuszczak's right-hand post with an angled drive in the fourth minute, Tongo Doumbia was caught in possession in his own half. After picking up the ball on the left, Kazenga LuaLua cut inside and thumped a shot past Dorus De Vries.

That, more or less, was that. "Que sera, sera," sang the 2,000 or so Wolves fans, "whatever will be will be, we're going to Shrewsbury." Black humour being something they do rather well, becoming the first club to twice be relegated from the top division to the third tier in successive seasons also elicited one or two ironic self-congratulatory chants.

Seven minutes before half-time, LuaLua did it again, feinting to cut inside before driving into the penalty area and firing past De Vries. For the rest of the game, Brighton retained possession with almost contemptuous ease while their thoughts turned to their forthcoming play-off game against Crystal Palace.

Having insisted the rebuilding process had begun at the final whistle, Wolves manager, Dean Saunders, said the game summed up the season. "We weren't good enough in their box and we weren't good enough in ours," he said. "It's been going on three years, but sometimes out of crisis you get an opportunity and we have an opportunity now, because we are at rock bottom, to change things drastically.

"We have to get some players in who think like I'm thinking, who want to win, fresh minds, no damage done to them, no confidence issues, no 'been here too long' issues, no 'I don't know if the manager likes me' issues. Once I get my own team on the pitch, imagine what the supporters will be like."

Given that Saunders has only five wins from his 20 games in charge, there has to be some doubt about whether he is the right man for the job. He will meet the club owner, Steve Morgan, and the chief executive, Jez Moxey, on Monday to discuss the inevitable clear-out, and must hope he is not among the departures.

Morgan issued a mea culpa of his own on Wolves' website, stating: "Relegation is a devastating blow. As chairman I take my responsibilities very seriously; we have failed our supporters, and the City, and for that I am truly sorry. We are all looking at ourselves in the mirror and reflecting on what went wrong.

"It is only right the players do the same. Many of them know they have not performed to the standards they are capable of and they must take their share of the responsibility. The extensive injuries which hit us at a crucial time in the season did not help our plight."

Wolves will be back, because well-supported clubs always are. The question is how long will it take. Given that the club anticipate a £5m drop in revenue and have a £25m wage bill that, almost unbelieveably, does not include relegation clauses, the financial fallout will be considerable, for all that the club will still receive £16m in parachute payments next season.

Those likely to leave include Sako, Kevin Doyle, Roger Johnson, Jamie O'Hara, Kaspars Gorkss and Nouha Dicko, and while Saunders would like to keep Stephen Hunt and Dave Edwards, both are out of contract, as are Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and George Elokobi.

Only in the final minutes did the Wolves fans really let their anger show. O'Hara was a target, booed every time he touched the ball: the midfielder's sarcastic gesturing back hardly helped, and when the Wolves players wandered disconsolately towards their supporters after the final whistle, O'Hara ignored them, walking pointedly down the tunnel without a backward glance.

Brighton, of course, have no such problems. "A few years ago they were bankrupt and without a stadium, but they've shown what is possible and, with the momentum, they have could well get into the Premier League," said Saunders. Right now, such an eventuality is a long way off for Wolves.